The parents of one of three teens murdered last month speak exclusively to Yahoo News.

BEIJING (AP) — China's ruling Communist Party announced an investigation into a feared ex-security chief on Tuesday, demonstrating President Xi Jinping's grip on power and breaking a longstanding taboo against publicly targeting the country's topmost leaders.

By Brendan O'Brien (Reuters) - A quiet woman wearing a flowing, black dress and mysteriously strolling along busy highways in parts of the U.S. Southeast and Midwest has the curious wondering who she is and spurred a social media site to document her trek. She has been dubbed the "Woman in Black," by TV stations, police and followers on the Web, including those on a Facebook page where she has been tracked on a nearly 500-mile journey with a black bag and walking stick in hand that has taken her from Ranger, Georgia, to Athens, Ohio, since July 18. Raymond Poles told Reuters he is the woman's brother, identifying her as Elizabeth Poles, 56, a U.S. Army veteran, mother of two children and a widow from Motts, Alabama. Elizabeth Poles had been receiving treatment at Veterans Affairs hospitals to deal with the deaths of her husband in 2008 and her father in 2009, he said.

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — In the whitest U.S. state, thousands of miles from the Mexican border, the debate over immigration is quickly becoming a central issue in one of the nation's most closely watched governor's races.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Residents of Mosul have watched helplessly as extremists ruling the northern Iraqi city blew up some of their most beloved landmarks and shrines to impose a stark vision of Islam. Next up for destruction, they feared: the Crooked Minaret, a more than 840-year-old tower that leans like Italy's Tower of Pisa.

By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In another sign of deteriorating relations between the United States and Russia, the U.S. government said on Monday that Moscow had violated the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty, and urged immediate bilateral talks on the issue. "This is a very serious matter which we have attempted to address with Russia for some time now," an administration official said in a statement. "We encourage Russia to return to compliance with its obligations under the treaty and to eliminate any prohibited items in a verifiable manner," the official said. The official did not describe how Russia violated the treaty.